It is unfortunate that such a pretty manner of accounting for the nature and origin of falling stars should be unsustained by sound astronomical data, and utterly discountenanced by Herschel and Bond. There is something in the theory very pleasant and very flattering to human nature; and there are passages in the history of our race that might make its promulgation not unacceptable. When, among the innumerable "patines of bright gold" that strew the floor of heaven, we see one part from the sphere of its undistinguished fellows, and, filling its pathway with radiant light, vanish noiselessly into annihilation, we cannot but be reminded of those characters that, with no apparent reason for being segregated from the common herd, are, through some strange conjuncture, hurried from a commonplace life by modes of death that illuminate their memory with immortal fame. It is thus that the fulfilment of the vow made in the heat of battle has given Jephthah's name a melancholy permanence above all others of the captains of Israel. Mutius would long ago have been forgotten, among the thousands of Roman soldiers as brave as he, and not less wise, who gave their blood for the good city, but for the fortunate brazier that stood in the tent of his enemy. And Leander might have safely passed and repassed the Hellespont for twenty years without leaving anything behind to interest posterity; it was failure and death that made him famous. Eighty years ago a tragedy was consummated by the river Hudson, which, in the character of its victim and the circumstances of his story, goes far to yield another example to the list of names immortalized by calamity. On the 2d of October, 1780, a young British officer of undistinguished birth and inconsiderable rank was hanged at Tappan. Amiable as his private life was, and respectable as were his professional abilities, it is improbable that the memory of John André, had he died upon the battle-field or in his bed, would have survived the generation of those who knew and who loved him. The future, indeed, was opening brilliantly before him; but it was still nothing more than the future. So far in his career he had hardly accomplished anything better than the attainment of the mountain-top that commanded a view of the Promised Land. It is solely and entirely to the occasion and the circumstances of his death that we are to ascribe the peculiar and universal interest in his character that has ever since continued to hold its seat in the bosom of friend and of foe. To this day, the most distinguished American and English historians are at issue respecting the justice of his doom; and to this day, the grave inquirer into the rise and fall of empires pauses by the way to glean some scanty memorial of his personal adventures. As often happens, the labors of the lesser author who pursues but a single object may encounter more success on that score than the writer whose view embraces a prodigious range; and